Father Bernard Vaughan's Advice

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVII, Issue 12, 25 March 1909, Page 450

Father Bernard Vaughan's Advice

During the past week or two the daily papers have boon iilled with particulars of the nauseating Stirling divorce case. In that scabrous case Lord Northland (son of New ZeaLand's late Governor, Lord Ranfurly) figured as co-respondent, and disgusting revelations were made regarding the loose morality and general corruption prevailing amongst ' the smart set.' The incident (which was even more fully reported in the Home papers) has called forth from Father Bernard Vaughan one of those vigorous, eloquent, and characteristically out-spoken sermons which have made the London Jesuit so famous. Taking for his text the verse, ' Lord, save us, we perish,' the preacher lashed and scourged and whipped with scorpions that decadent section of society which is poisoning the very springs of morality in England. 'In society, of course, nobody did wrong till he was found out; nobody cared what happened, provided the press did not get hold of it and it was kept out of the law courts. Self-reverence and self-control were being regarded as the superstitions of a bygone day,, and women, no less than men, like debauched pagans of old, were crying out, " Let us crown ourselves with roses before they are withered ; let no meadow escape our riot ; let none of us go without our part in luxury; let us everywhere leave tokens of joy, for this is our portion and this is our lot." Woman as well as man was so constituted that once she had flung away the reins which alone could hold in passion, she was riding a ride to hell ; and unless in .her agony and her repentance she cried out, " Lord, save me, I perish," her spiritual doom was as certain as the death of, one who was carried over a precipice.'

* Then, turning to the warring and contradictory sects. Father Vavghan gives them a bit of the most homely, practical, commonsense advice which they have listened to for many a day. 'In Christianity, and Christianity alone,' he said ,' was there to be found what repressed vice anil stimulated virtue. He ventured to think that Low Protestantism, instead of expending its energies in talking about Rome, as Babylon, and of Pius the Tenth as the Scarlet Woman, would be bettor employed in urging its adherents to say their prayers, curb their passions, and go to church on Sunday. And unless he was very much mistaken, he thought that High Protestants, or (as they preferred to be called) Anglican Catholics, would do much bettor service to their cause if, instead of teaching bad history, and saying England was never at any time Cath- . olic, they said nothing at all about the past, but tried themselves to live, and to get others in society to live, in accordance with the Gospel of Christ as it was understood by them. Nothing recruited the ranks of Agnosticism so rapidly as the nonsense talked by laity and clergy alike in the innumerable sections which went to make up the Church established by law in this country. Libels" on history were not going to convert any intelligent man.' This is plain speaking, but it is true; and the truth, is all the better of an airing now and then.